


Park Row

by DarkShadowRin



Series: Timna Drake [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28215414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadowRin/pseuds/DarkShadowRin
Summary: Tim's patrol route includes Park Row.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne
Series: Timna Drake [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057688
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	Park Row

Tim's patrol route includes Park Row.

In the first few years of his career, Batman takes to it with prejudice. But then Robin comes and initially, according to the reports Tim read, Dick takes some nibbles that becomes bites as he grows older. 

Jason though, he wrestled the rights straight out from Batman, knowing the streets better and treating its occupants with more care than they had been previously afforded, bare glimpses of Dick's bright smile.

On one side of the alley is the street Thomas and Martha Wayne bled to death, and on the other side is Jason's old neighbourhood and the boy's favourite hunting ground.

Now Tim is left with it and she has no ties here, no ghosts here that haunts her every steps.

She flies overhead as it's guardian in honor of people who never knew her. She flits in the periphery of the men and women that inhabit it. She doesn't know how to interact with them without an objective so instead she stalks their shadows and watch and listen.

The kids though, Robin alights for them. The kids and the strays, she protects and she saves and she offers her cape for the victims when she's too late.

The older ones never appreciate that and she learns fast and never attempted to offer again after the second time she's spat at by an adult. They know she's not one of them, knows she's not her predecessor, and she knows she did the right thing when they receive her quiet nod and mourns their Robin.

And the ones she's even later to reach.... the cave has dozens and dozens of spares, so she doesn't hesitate to unclip her cape and moves on to another case, hoping that she's fast enough for this one.

It's difficult. Because she's new, and she's been trained but it's different from operating on the field, with lives at stake and every second of pause might be a second wasted and-

And she knows the protocols because she recites them in her mind when she's training, walking, eating, changing, bathing, washing the dishes, and before she sleeps but- it's different.

But Tim does her best and never feels it's enough and learns it may never do.

One time, Bruce digs himself out of the grief that cloaks him like a second skin, or maybe her despair is just that bright, because he walks up to her, then moves to rest his hand on her shoulder before ultimately letting it fall back to his side.

Tim falls silent too, the echoes of her voice fading away, and she almost resumes talking again for fear that the gloom tucked into the corners will use the reprieve to leap at them, at him, and devour their hearts alive.

"... You're doing good. You- have proven yourself to me."

It has all the sound of being prompted, almost scripted maybe. By either Alfred or Dick, she doesn't know but Tim turns to him, eyes purple in the dim lighting and dull with fatigue but still alive in its youth.

"You let me be Robin, that's enough." Enough acknowledgement, enough reward, enough. "It's them I'll have to prove it to."

Them.

Park Row. Gotham.

Jack. Janet.

Martha. Thomas.

Jason.

She doesn't know who she meant, but nothing sounds wrong so she lets that hang in the air.

And perhaps for the first time, Bruce meets her eyes.

Not Robin's. Not his partner's.

Not even Tim's.

Whoever she is to her bare bones, that part of a person that doesn't need a name.

And Bruce nods, turns, and leaves her in the cave and she'll remember later feeling as if there's no other place in the world that can make her feel as at home as the cool walls and the chattering bats in the ceiling does. The closest she can get is the quiet of the chapel tucked in the heart of Gotham.

It's the first time she feels that Robin might become something bigger for her too, not just an act to play, a marionette to move to the script in her mind, or a mantle to hold until the next guy comes by.


End file.
